Unborn World
by Yuuki Hikari
Summary: What if these weren't the things you didn't have... what if these weren't the moments you never shared?  First morning after Ed's first child.  Ed/Win, Trisha/Hohenheim, Alphonse, Izumi.  "What if" AU dream scenario with an FMA1 base.  Enjoy.
1. Things You Don't Have

**Unborn World**

_A/N: This will be seven chapters (at least, what I've outlined). This is a very AU story, with an FMA1 point of reference. No beta (PM me with corrections if you see them). Ed/Winry. Trisha/Hohenheim. Please enjoy :)_

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Chapter 1 – Things You Don't Have**

_What if these weren't the things you didn't have…_

Woollen socks wrapped warm toes lying at the end of the footrest. A small knit blanket had been thrown over him, covering him from his knees to his chest. He lay on his back, stretched out along the extended rocker; it didn't rock when it was laid like this – the rocking chair locked in place almost like a bed. Some nights, this was the bed. Bundled in a heavy woven cardigan, his head had fallen to the side and his chin curled into his left shoulder. It was the middle of winter: January 1922. The cracks by the door were smothered by a blanket that had been thrown on the floor to hold out the draft. The seams around the window still let the season leak in, and those windows had nearly frosted over on the inside; it was so much warmer indoors. Even if the chill skulked around the fringes of the home, that's where the winter nip remained, because the house itself wasn't cold. The fire had run all night. Someone had been up to maintain it. That someone wasn't him though.

He shifted.

There was a weight on his chest – unspeakably warm, but not all that heavy. Like a cat that had curled up near his collarbone, but it wasn't a fuzzy little creature. His hands held this little warmth in place.

Soft fingers with trimmed nails brushed over the right side of his cheek. He knew this touch and it didn't bother him. It was as unassuming as a spring breeze. He liked her hand; it was familiar, it was safe, and it was nice. Several of those fingers swept his fallen hair from his face, and he didn't need to open his eyes to know the owner of that hand smiled at him. He always knew when she was smiling at him.

He cracked open his right eye, and then followed with his left, looking beyond heavy, exhausted eyelids at the comforting smile that covered him. Oh, she was pretty sitting there next to him. There was stronger definition to her cheekbones now, and there was a crease through her forehead that his brother jokingly insisted was his fault. The weight of her older skin had blemished a bit, but didn't make her any less lovely to look at. Even the permanent smile creases that were engraved around the woman's mouth didn't detract from her beauty.

He gave her his tired smile.

"Good morning, sweetheart," she said.

And her voice was always lovely, Ed concluded, "Morning, Mom."

"You slept," Trisha spoke like she'd just patted a toddler on his head.

Ed rolled his head off his left shoulder; a pink blemish remained imprinted in his cheek while Trisha's hand continued sweeping Ed's hair from his face.

"What time is it?" Ed asked.

"6:30," was the quiet answer.

The last Ed could remember it had been one in the morning. He didn't remember falling asleep – he remembered feeling beat, run out, and exhausted since _that_ stress ended, but he didn't recall falling asleep.

Trisha squeezed herself onto the seat cushion of the stretched out rocker, and Ed carefully slid over to let her sit. She lay down next to him, wrapping her left arm through the elbow of his flesh right limb, and tucking her head in up against his cheek. She had a smile that never went away. The mother put a kiss on her son's cheek; she always kissed her boys no matter how old they were or if they protested. Ed absolutely hated that when he was fifteen, but it didn't seem so bad today.

"I'm glad you came over," his voice still sounded tired from the five hours of sleep – which had been far more than he'd gotten in the last few days, but still not enough.

"And miss this?" Trisha mocked her son like he had suggested she wouldn't have been there.

Ed tipped a tired cheek into her forehead and shut his eyes again.

"She's beautiful," Trisha said softly.

An golden eye cracked open, looking down at the weight on his chest. His mother's hand carefully touched what his hands cradled. The warm weight was tiny, curled up, and seemed to fit quite nicely in the basket of two hands. It was definitely bald, a little wrinkled, and a little pudgy, like it needed to be stretched out to fit into its skin. Its eyes were pinched, its fists were clenched, and it lay quietly in the green fleece blanket it had been wrapped in when 'dad' received the bundle.

It was _his_.

"I'm profoundly jealous of you, Edward Elric," Trisha's words sounded playfully harsh, like she were scolding him, "you cried and you fussed when you were born… for _days_. You were a noisy baby."

Ed rolled his eyes.

"But this little one cried on arrival, and now she just sleeps. She slept the whole night there on your chest and didn't peep. That's absolutely impossible and completely unfair," Trisha pouted with a bountiful lower lip.

Ed laughed lightly, his chest heaving as he did. Surprised by his own action, his hands carefully clamped around the sleeping baby ball hoping he hadn't disturbed it.

"Baby should have slept with 'mom'," Ed's brow began to show stitches of his concern.

Trisha's words softened, "Mom is exhausted," and she qualified the statement, knowing her son well enough to realize it was necessary, "and she'll be fine. Don't worry about her. That's why Izumi's here. She's a good midwife and she'll take care of her."

As much as his mother meant well, as far as Ed was concerned, that still didn't cut it. His mind cautiously began looking back into the day before... yet for all the trials and tribulations, this world blissfully robbed him of his focus to a rollercoaster day with a smell that began to filter through the house.

"… Who's cooking?" Ed blinked.

"Your father is," Trisha answered casually.

"Why?" he narrowed an eye, "its 6:30… the sun's not even up."

"We're up," Trisha giggled at him, "And your father and Alphonse have been up all night making sure your house stays in order."

A faint smile crept its way through Edward, "They're good with the all-nighters, aren't they?"

"That's because my family is made up of mad scientists. You all get that way," Trisha continued to giggle.

The baby moved and it stole Ed's eyes. She peeped and stole his undivided attention. Sudden panic hit once more – what's going on? What's wrong? What am I supposed to do? A sleeping baby was easy, but a woken one? He had no idea what to do with it.

"You should sit up," his mother encouraged, sitting up herself, watching her son carefully place both strong hands around the baby – one to cradle the child's head, one for its backside. Ed sat up.

Pushing his knees together, Ed put the scrunched up bundle down in the crevice of his thighs. He looked wide-eyed at the little thing engage in motion. The tiny bundle was magically able to cripple a great alchemist in a great family. Ed's one hand remained nervously at the infant's forehead, his other was held frozen at its bent knees. Alchemy could create many things. Edward Elric had created many, _many_ things with alchemy… and yet this tiny little thing was something he'd help make in an entirely different manner. He understood alchemy to near perfection. He understood this tiny creature the least. Ed stared down at a terrifying learning curve.

Ed's expression tensed, watching the little thing fuss and sputter on his legs. Edward didn't think his mind could be so overwhelmed with thoughts that it would just shut off intermittently like it was doing. His mother interrupted his concerns with a kiss at his temple – this mom was an expert at resetting his tension.

The baby began to chirp, and squawk, and make some strange vocal sounds that an uncomfortable infant would make when it had no other way to communicate to the world that life had just gotten a million times harder.

Ed began to refit the soft green blanket around his tiny little person, while his mother's hand tickled behind his back as she put her chin down on her son's right shoulder to watch.

"You're doing okay…" they both said.

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**To Be Continued…**

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_A/N: So, Arakawa gave Ed a first-born boy… and I want Ed to have a girl. Isn't it cute to see Ed as the father of a baby girl? I think its adorable. Originally the baby's gender was undefined, but I changed my mind on that.  
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	2. Times You Never Got

**Chapter 2 – Times You Never Got**

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**_What if these weren't times you never got…_

Alphonse's nose twitched. It tweaked to the left and then the right, before his nostrils flared and sucked in the air; the warm arouma of breakfast flooded in. Al's eyes fluttered around beneath the anvils of his eyelids, and the young man smacked his lips together – loud and emphatic. He picked his head up off the kitchen table and began to rub the blur out of his eyes.

"Dad," the youngest son began, "I don't think breakfast is going to fix the fact I've been up for most of the last 26 hours."

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It'll give you energy," Hohenheim stuck a fork in a buttermilk pancake and swung it over to his boy, "if you aren't going to listen to your mother and I and have a nap, at least eat something…" the old man tipped his head with a frown, "and be glad you're not your brother. I don't think he slept all week."

Al shuddered at the notion, taking the pancake with his fingers, rather than presenting his plate, "He's a basket case on a good day," the youngest son eyed the warning look his father gave him for the finger food. Like no crime of manners had been committed, Al casually put his piece of breakfast onto a white porcelain plate, "I never want to put up with him like that again. Next kid he decides to have, I'm showing up after it's born."

The Elric father laughed. His utensils were placed down on the stove without clatter and Hohenheim moved from his work to his youngest son. A hefty arm wrapped under the young man's chin, and he pulled his tired son's gaze up to him as Al dumped his head into his father's side, "You are a very good, supportive brother. Don't forget that about yourself. Edward needs you to keep from falling apart entirely."

"I think he'd be in a million pieces on the floor if he didn't have me!" Alphonse announced through a yawn as Hohenheim moved back to the stove and Al's head rolled away. Tipping his chair, Al reached out and pulled a dish rag off the handle of a drawer, "Ugh, the last time I saw the sun set and rise again, I was working on my thesis. I didn't want to do an all-nighter again for at least three months… and it's only been ten days," he folded the rag in half, and in half again, and laid it out on the table, "I may never sleep like a normal person again after this," his head dropped sharply to the side as his father put a hot plate down on the folded rag.

"Just keep telling yourself it's for a good cause," Hohenheim smirked, looking proudly at his spread of breakfast plates on the table. He put the cooking tongs down next to his son's hand and watched Al give a lazy eye to the choices – bacon, sausage links, scrambled eggs, hash browns, the fattest single waffle Hohenheim may have ever made, and a pile of buttermilk pancakes. The fat waffle was untouchable – it was for his stubborn eldest son, who wouldn't eat the pancakes on principal. Trisha loved them though, and Hohenheim added a jar of maple syrup to the collection. The father nodded to himself, "That's enough for six people I think…"

"Seven," Alphonse corrected his father, "there's a squishy baby sleeping on my brother's chest."

The father gave a wise nod, "Indeed, but the baby will dine with her mother."

With a thoughtful eye to his father's culinary creations, Al lazily reached out and collected two plates, "How's new-mom doing?" he asked, pulling his backside out of the wooden chair and drawing up to his feet.

"Izumi says she'll be fine. That woman always seems to know what she's talking about, so I'm not about to argue with her," Hohenheim cocked an eyebrow at the thought of attempting to argue with Izumi. When the topics were about life and not alchemy, he was destined to lose.

Al couldn't withhold the grin he flashed at his father, "That's Mrs. Curtis for you. She's awesome."

"Yes, and I'm constantly reminded of this," Hohenheim rubbed the back of his neck absently, "and thank you again for letting her boy room with you for a few days in Central while you were busy with your thesis, Alphonse."

"Oh stop that, Dad," Al waved his hand absently, "that was nothing. He took care of himself, I just gave him somewhere to sleep during the Prospects Tour," at that Alphonse paused, and narrowed his eyes. His tongue ran across his teeth as he thought, before throwing a sly look over to his father and setting the plates down, "you know, you cooould look over my thesis and give me your input."

Hohenheim frowned, "I think you're smart enough to know how your own thesis is coming."

Drawing on a trick the boy must have learnt from his mother, Alphonse widened his eyes, pulled his brow down, tightened his lips and jaw, and looked sincerely... and a little pleadingly... to his father, "Please Dad?"

Hohenheim slid his eyes to the side and gave his attention to tidying up the counter of Edward's kitchen, "You are too old for that face, Alphonse Elric."

The corners of Al's mouth fell to a childish pout, "Please Dad?"

With a sigh, Al received 'that look' from above the rim of Hohenheim's glasses. The youngest son didn't falter against the 'look' and continued to stare back at his father. Al's lower lip popped out foolishly and he lightened the pitch in his voice.

"Please Father? You always help me with my homework."

Hohenheim choked on a laugh. Technically, that had been true... "But this is a _thesis,_ young man. I've had enough input into your work as it is, and your name is already on one of _my _collaborations. Ask your brother. Edward is more than capable."

Al scoffed at the suggestion playfully, "Right... Father Basket-Case is going to be thinking straight enough to help me while his baby cries and he flails around the house in a panic."

A thoughtful little glimmer struck Hohenheim's eye as he composed a mental storyboard of his eldest son over the next few months. His hand swept over his face to forcefully hide the smirk at the composition, and he returned to cleaning, "Perhaps Edward won't be the best choice," Hohenheim shook his head, "but did you actually get your thesis _done_ after all that work over the new year?"

"Mostly, it's not due until April though," Alphonse leaned over the table of breakfast fixings and began distributing food among two plates, "I hit a stride two weeks ago and just didn't want to lose it. That's why I was so busy. I got six solid theories going that'll add elements to the periodic table, and I've been working on trials for proving them," even when tired, Alphonse could bubble with excitement over his work, "it's going to be spectacular when I finish it."

A narrow golden eye cast over the excited son, "Don't forget who you're crediting for establishing the credentials on four of those theories, young man."

"Yes, yes, _yes. _I _know_," Alphonse waved his finger through the air.

"If I end up being known as Alphonse Elric's father instead of you being known as my son, I'll disown you," the father teased, ruffling the boys hair, "Now go, feed people. I'll clean up in here."

Snatching up the plates of warm food, Alphonse Elric rolled away from his father with a smirk, "Yes, Gran'dad."

Bemused golden eyes shone over his son's back at the comment, "Alphonse..." Hohenheim called.

The young man looked back.

"We'll see about your thesis," his father stated.

Turning from the kitchen and into the remainder of the house, Alphonse grinned, knowing he was one pout, one pleading look, one strategic sigh, or one giant bear hug away from getting his dad to read the thesis. Al snickered at himself and rolled his head around on his neck, catching a reflection in the corner of his eye on a round mirror in the hallway as he passed it.

Alphonse stopped dead, nearly dropping his plates.

The younger Elric brother shuffled back two steps and looked at his reflection in the mirror in the pre-dawn morning. He had the ugliest dark circles under his eyes and his hair desperately needed a comb. Al opened his mouth wide and tried to stretch the bedraggled look out of his face. His teeth clamped back together and Al continued to look at his reflection. He made a face at himself, and it only seemed to make the wretchedly tired reflection look worse.

But that wasn't why he'd gone back to the mirror. Al searched through his tired jumble of memories for what had startled him so much that he'd stopped to double checked his reflection. Something hadn't been right in the mirror, but for the life of him he couldn't remember what.

Al shook his head, and looked down to the plates in his hands. He turned away and continued towards his mother and brother. The corner of Al's eye once again saw _something_ else in the unfocussed reflection of his passing. It was too deep in the fringes of his focus to have any shape... too trapped in the fuzzy haze of the corners of sight to be seen clearly.

Despite how Alphonse felt he should know something about what he was missing, he ignored it.

Obviously, Al was overtired.

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**To Be Continued...**

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_A/N: Slow day at work yesterday gave me time to work on this :) nicely unexpected. _


	3. Moments You Didn't Live

_I went back and edited the first two chapters. Baby is a girl. I want Ed to have girls - a whole circus of daughters (pending Mom's approval). I love the idea of Ed with daughters, he'd be such a fantastic daughter-dad. And I wish I didn't have a bunny farm… I've thought up more than one way I'd like to handle this story. Now I'm indecisive, woe. Maybe I'll write them all and then decide which I like the best. Lucky for this chapter, my indecisions don't affect it.  
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**Chapter 3 – Moments You Didn't Live**

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_What if these weren't moments you didn't live…_

Sneaking in from behind, Trisha grinned when a kiss from her youngest son pushed into her cheek, "Hi Gran'ma" Al greeted her playfully.

Ed did not realize until the smell of food on the plates in Alphonse's hands entered the room that he was even remotely hungry. He gave a tired, very hungry, very longing look to the assortment his younger brought into the room. In any other heart beat, Ed would have made a b-line for the little side table Al placed breakfast down on, but this heartbeat shuddered around in his chest, terrified at how red this poor unhappy baby was becoming. He'd walked through towns, he'd walked through stores, he'd walked through the streets of East City, West City, and Central City and heard the annoying, maddening cries of other peoples children and wished they'd do something to shut them up. But this distraught, incommunicable little creature made his chest hurt and heart ache; he didn't know something so tiny could make him feel so awful and _helpless._ There was no way to hold her, no way to cradle her, no way to comfort her - Ed couldn't get her to calm down. She wouldn't be soothed. How could she be so incredibly upset? _What do I do?_

"Here, let me try," Alphonse's thought the fluster on his brother's face was laughable, but the younger brother had a lot more pity than anything else for the situation, even on a night of no sleep. A hand came to his brother's shoulder to break him from the concerns overtaking his face. Ed carefully passed off the bundle of distraught flesh and bones to his younger brother, and watched Al put the baby down against his chest with a light rub over its back and bounce to his feet.

"Come on baby, hush."

Shoulders fell when Alphonse's presence seemed to make the baby's mood worse, not better.

"So much for you being a teddy bear," Ed scoffed, somewhat relieved that it wasn't just him who couldn't quell the baby's problem, "tell that little girlfriend of yours she needs to give you a new nickname."

"Oh shut up," Al shook his head, eyeing the little bundle in his hands that was thoroughly unimpressed with life so far.

With the shake of her head, Trisha slipped her hands in behind Al's and relinquished him of his failed attempt to calm a crying newborn, "Give her to me."

Ed's hands slipped into his pockets as he watched his mother place his child into her chest, like every other mother in the entire world apparently knew how to do. He couldn't remember what it was like to see his mom hold Al as a baby; Ed had been too young to keep that memory, but she just looked _so _content like this. Unfortunately, Edward's baby was not interested in interacting peacefully with anyone at the moment.

"I bet she's hungry," Trisha concluded, continuing to try her hand at claming the newborn infant.

"What is all this racket?" Hohenheim's voice rose up as he entered the room, coming up from behind his wife, leaning around, and placing a kiss on her cheek, "do I spy some kind of déjà vu in your arms, Trisha?"

His wife laughed.

"The baby is putting up a protest," Alphonse announced, "things were better when it was warm and comfy inside mom, and she had a feeding tube for all life's needs."

"Well, she's just going to have to accept this life and move on," the newly crowned Elric grandfather grinned, "here, Trisha, let me see my grandchild."

Again, possession of the unruly baby was transferred, this time into the largest hands of anyone in the room, and Hohenheim took his turn at quieting a thing that could not communicate its problem.

Al glanced to his brother and quickly did a double take before laughing, "You look like you're going to pass out from stress. Calm down."

Ed began to sputter with nearly as much gusto as his crying child, "B-but I don't know what's wrong! What if something serious is wrong? How am I supposed to know? Babies can't _talk_. They… they do that! How's that supposed to help me? That doesn't tell me anything… it's just… an upset sound!"

Al responded with a malicious grin, "Maybe you should have thought of that before you'd had sex, my genius older brother."

For Edward, the world may have ended right then and there. Rather than turning beet red, Ed bled down to a pure, horrified white, "A-ALPHONSE," his pointed index fingers flew out in two directions, "parents are right here."

Al looked upon his brother's lack of maturity with a blank stare, before he popped his voice to his mother, "Mom!" he cried out theatrically, "Brother's been having unprotected sex. Dad's holding the evidence. He's obviously guilty, maybe you should ground him. Send him to bed without dinner, buy him condoms, or something."

Trisha found herself torn between scolding Alphonse for his childish outburst, and laughing at Edward's expense while she peeled her eldest son off the floor.

"You're not going to know what to do," Trisha brushed Edward off, and sweeping the window dressing of hair from her son's face, "the baby is going to cry sometimes and you won't ever figure out what she really wants. You're going to just have to let her cry. For all the other cries, she'll teach you what she wants… you'll get familiar with them, but that'll take time. There's a lot of guessing involved."

"Mom," Ed pleaded, "I'm an alchemist. I don't guess."

"Edward," Trisha smiled, "you're a father. You will guess."

Ed's face contorted, giving a wary eye to the baby in his father's arms.

A sudden realization hit everyone just then, and a deadpan of Elric family eyes hit Hohenheim like an assault of brick.

The baby was silent.

Hohenheim smirked at his family, "I still have my touch."

Trisha sighed, "Oh you…"

From beyond shoulders and behind backs, a voice fell down the stairwell, "Oh good, everyone's mobile," Izumi took a few steps down the stairs, leaning around to peer into the room from beyond the handrail, "Mom's up."

Hohenheim returned the silenced child to his eldest son's arms, and Ed took on the moderate escort mission through the house to the upper floor where Mom had spent her night.

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**To Be Continued…**


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